Awesome job Team USA! You got us further along than any team has for 80 years! You did all this despite the incredible apathy and disinterest by the USA population... astonishing to have a team at perseveres... you did us proud! Next Cup, quarter finals!

WORLD -- June 24, 2010

As we flew into Rio de Janeiro, the city's jagged emerald mountains, sapphire blue waters and ribbon of white beaches seemed as pristine and beautiful as advertised. Yet just outside our sea-side breakfast room on famed Copacabana beach, a gigantic oil tanker was steaming for the deep Atlantic waters beyond.

This week, President Obama delivered a message to the health insurance industry and to opponents of our new health care law: "We're not going back. I refuse to go back."

And to show just how serious he is about protecting everyone's access to affordable, quality health care, President Obama unveiled a Patients' Bill of Rights that features key provisions that take effect this year and will put consumers – not insurance companies – in charge of their health care.

But opponents of the law continue working overtime, spreading lies about the new law in an attempt to score political points and repeal the bill.

Foreign Policy Magazine has posted a photo series titled Postcards From Hell, which catalogs the world's "most failed states." The list was compiled by the Fund For Peace.

This year's index draws on 90,000 publicly available sources to analyze 177 countries and rate them on 12 metrics of state decay -- from refugee flows to economic implosion, human rights violations to security threats. Taken together, a country's performance on this battery of indicators tells us how stable -- or unstable -- it is. And unfortunately for many of the 60 most troubled, the news from 2009 is grave.

WINNIPEG, Canada, 24 June (BWNS)– World leaders meeting in Canada have been urged to take "inspired leadership and action" to halt poverty, protect the environment, and end violent conflict.

The challenge was made in a statement drafted by representatives of the world's religions, who gathered at the University of Winnipeg in advance of this week's G8 and G20 summits in Toronto.

"Acknowledging our common humanity and embracing the imperative to treat all persons with dignity, we affirm that no one person is more or less valuable than another," said the statement.

"We urge the political leaders to consider first the vulnerable among us, particularly our children, and to work together to address the dehumanizing scourge of poverty and injustice, and practice and promote care for our common environment, the Earth," the statement said.

The World Religions Summit 2010 was the sixth in a series of interfaith gatherings associated with the annual G8 meetings. It brought together more than 80 participants from all of the world's major faiths including, for the first time, representatives of the Baha'i community.

Religious leaders from more than 20 countries attended, including each of the G8 nations - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The Reverend Dr. James Christie, secretary general of the Summit, said the meeting and its output was directed principally at the leaders of the so-called "Group of 8" countries because they represent the nations that have the most power to effect change in the world.

"The reality is that these nations have the money, they have the clout, and they make a difference," said Dr. Christie.

Some participants said it was also important for the religious communities themselves to redouble their own efforts to address the three main topics of their discussions - poverty, the environment, and peace.

"We are living in a very critical period in history," said His Holiness Aram I, of the Armenian Orthodox Church. "I believe what is important for us is building community. It is not just living side-by-side, coexisting peacefully. It is a question of building integrated communities, communities of integrated diversity, accepting and respecting the others, but living together."

"We have to tell the G8 and the world that we religions not only speak together but that we are working together to build communities of integrated dialogue," he said.

Baha'i participation

Among the Baha'i representatives at the Summit was Susanne Tamas of Canada, who was joined by Baha'is from five other countries – France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

"We believe that spiritual principles need to be brought into the discussion of such challenges as poverty, the environment, and peace and security," said Ms. Tamas. "We want to create a space where the political leaders can reflect and make decisions for the long term, and for the common good, rather than on short-term, national concerns."

"We're also here to learn – because these issues are complex and we need to learn what other faiths are saying about them," she said.

As a prelude to the Summit, the Baha'i community of Canada sponsored a seminar on human rights and religious freedom. The day-long event – held in Winnipeg on Monday, 21 June – brought together four human rights experts from different religious backgrounds who concluded that the right to freedom of religion must be upheld to ensure that its influence on society is progressive and positive.

"Courageous and concrete" actions

The statement, issued after three days of deliberation at the World Religions Summit 2010, called upon political leaders to take "courageous and concrete" actions.

Regarding poverty, it said more than a billion people are "chronically hungry" and that women, children and indigenous peoples are among those most affected.

"The magnitude of poverty would be overwhelming were it not for the knowledge that this global inequity can be transformed into a shared life of human flourishing for all. Together, we have the capacity and the global resources to end extreme poverty and its impacts," the statement said.

On the subject of the environment, the statement noted that all faith traditions "call us to careful stewardship of the Earth." It warned of the effects of climate change and said "bold action is needed now."

Governments were also called upon to halt the nuclear arms race, and to make new investments to create a "culture of peace."

The Summit condemned religiously-motivated terrorism and extremism with the faith leaders committing themselves "to stop the teaching and justification of the use of violence between and among our faith communities."

The statement was presented to Steven Fletcher, Canada's Minister of State for Democratic Reform. Mr. Fletcher promised to deliver it to the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for presentation to the G8 leaders.

"I guess he went out and bought a Landon Donovan jersey a couple of weeks back, and he wore it yesterday," the American goalkeeper said Thursday. "That's pretty cool, when you see guys like that in other sports, high-level athletes who you respect, getting involved and enjoying our team and our success."

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

It was a hot day in Manhattan. A few friends had gathered to watch the U.S. play England at a small bar not far from Times Square. When I got there, people were stacked on the sidewalk getting a peek at the TVs inside. I squeezed my way into the bar and headed toward the back, where my friends were until the French owner stopped me.

“Are you for America?” he asked sternly with a gruff, drawling Napoleonic intonation. It certainly didn’t sound like a question of sport; it sounded like he was asking if I believed in American ideals of democracy and free speech, free enterprise and unalienable rights.

Copyright 2011 by Daniel C. Orey All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

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About Me

Daniel Clark Orey, Ph.D. is Professor
Emeritus of Mathematics and Multicultural Education at California State
University, Sacramento where he served from 1987 to January 2011. At the same
university, he was an instructor in the Department of Learning Skills
(Department of Learning Skills) and served as a faculty member in the doctoral
program in Educational Leadership (Educational Leadership). As Coordinator and
Principal Investigator of Algorithm Collection Project, Dr. Orey is interested
in studying the various ways in which newly arrived immigrants in California
communities, think, reason and calculate mathematically. Dr. Orey graduated
from Oregon State University in 1978 and began teaching at Monitor Elementary
School in Mount Angel, Oregon. Later, he also taught mathematics at the
following schools: Riverdale School in Portland, Oregon, the American School of
Guatemala in Guatemala City and at the Escuela Americana de Bananera,
Guatemala. Dr. Orey earned his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction in
Multicultural Education at the University of New Mexico in 1988. Both his
masters and doctoral research studies were funded by Mellon-Tinker Foundation
grants. During his doctoral research, Dr. Orey served as a consultant at the
Colegio Americano de Puebla and for Apple de Mexico. His masters work took him
to Patzun, Chimaltenango in Guatemala where he did field research with
computers and Mayan children. In 1992, Dr. Orey had an important role in
founding the Sociedade Internacional para Estudos da Criança with the late Prof. Ruy Krebbs, where he served
as general secretary for several terms. In the period 1995 to 1998, Dr. Orey
was the director of Professional Development and the Center for Teaching and
Learning at California State University, Sacramento. In 1998, at the invitation
of Professor Ubiratan D'Ambrosio, Dr. Orey served as a Fulbright Scholar at the
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas in Brasil, which he conducted
research in classrooms and taught courses in ethnomathematics and mathematical
modeling. During the 2005-2006 school year, Dr. Orey served as visiting
professor and researcher, sponsored by CNPq in the area of mathematics
education, ethnomathematics at the Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto. In 2007,
Dr. Orey served as Senior Fulbright Specialist in Kathmandu University, Nepal,
giving lectures on topics related to mathematics education and teaching on
Ethnomathematics and modeling. Dr. Orey has published numerous books, articles
and book chapters in several languages. He also taught workshops and courses,
conducted oral presentations, and lectured in several countries. Dr. Orey
speaks and writes fluently in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

He is currently professor of mathematics
education in the Centro de Educação Aberta e a Distância Universidade Federal
de Ouro Preto, Brasil.